Chinese Lantern
by Jack E. Peace
Summary: Set toward the end of the bookmovie; the boys telling the story attend a garage sale of the Libsons' property and find many more secrets and heartache among the objects.


Disclaimer: The characters do not belong to me, nor do the events   
  
A/N: Okay, even though I have seen the movie twice, all of my information really comes from the book (wonderful book by Jeffrey Eugenides) because I just finished reading it again about an hour ago. So, of course, the story is set after the Lisbon girls commit suicide, except for Mary and Mr. Hedlie is selling all their stuff. Told in the POV of the boys telling the book and telling the movie.   
  
Chinese Lantern   
  
  
  
The thought of anyone else owning the Lisbon girls' possessions made us all sick to our stomachs, a different kind of sick then what we had been feeling lately. It was the kind of sick a person feels when their private world has been invaded, all their private thoughts and secrets thrown out into public view, for everyone to know; once everyone knows a secret, it loses its value. That was how we felt the day we saw the ad for a garage sale in the Friday morning paper.   
  
We all gathered together in Tim Winer's basement, passing the paper around until our fingers were stained with ink, reading the print over and over again until we knew the ad as well as we knew our own addresses. After we finally stopped reading, we gathered our growing collection of Lisbon memorabilia that we had collected from the nightly trash piles that Mr. Hedlie set out after he had finished ravaging the Lisbon house for the day. Their hair brushes (with golden hair still tangled in the teeth), Bonnie's stuffed iguana, Mary's portable mirror and many other treasures were heaped together on the floor. Our own private slice of the beautiful Lisbon sisters.   
  
Now with the announcement of a garage sale, we realized that our carefully guarded possessions would lose value because everyone would be able to own a piece of the Lisbon girls. Parts of them that we could never own: Mary's canopy bed, the bathtub that Cecilia had soaked in, and the very furniture that they had used during their short lives. We knew these were some of the things being solid because they had yet to be tossed out, thrown onto the street for the trash man to collect in the morning.   
  
As we thought about what this meant, Joe Hill Conley wondered if Mary would be upset that her bed was being sold. It seemed that it was a little heartless to sell all of the Lisbon girls' possessions when one of them was still alive; what if Mary wanted something to remember her sisters by?   
  
For long hours we stayed in that basement, fingering the worn tube-top that Lux had worn long ago, thinking inwardly, as well as out loud, if there was anything that we could do to stop the sale from going on and our private world from being shattered. We had worked so hard to collect our reminders, it seemed unfair that people who cared nothing for the girls would be able to take away a piece of their tragic lives for a small fee.   
  
By the time the sun had disappeared behind the trees and the street lights were coated with fish flies, we knew that there was nothing we could do to preserve the fragmented world we had created. As we all headed home, we decided to attend the sale the following day, none of us stupid enough to pass up the opportunity to tour the Lisbon house once again. Inwardly, we wished to replace our current memories of the house (Mary with her head and upper torso in the oven, Bonnie swinging from the rafters) with ones not so grim, even though we knew that was impossible. Seeing the blonde angels in their self-created deaths would haunt us until we died ourselves.   
  
The following day the turnout at the Lisbon garage sale was much like we had anticipated, with most of our isolated town turning out only to see inside the tragically famous house, stepping up the stairs where Cecilia climbed to her death. Or stopped by the bathroom, pointing inside and whispering amongst themselves, "This is where it started."   
  
We did none of those things but instead lurked around the outside, passing by the objects that we had been unable to get a hold of, seeing the beds where the girls had slept and dreamt and the dishes (though many chipped) that they had eaten out of. As we passed these things, we let our fingers trail along the smooth surfaces, the objects speaking volumes to us, where other people there only saw them as cheap deals.   
  
When we finally entered the house, we didn't look into the kitchen (afraid that we would still see Mary, though she was in the hospital) or go into the basement (for fear of seeing Bonnie's stocking feet still swinging) but headed instead upstairs, stepping into the girls' no longer used rooms.   
  
The candle shrine that the sisters had created in memory of Cecilia was still stuck around on the window sills, the wax sticking to the carpets, walls and used milk cartons. Chase Buell went over to the candles and attempted to pull one off the sill, looking guilty when the half-melted purple candle came off, resting in his hand. He slipped it into his pocket after a second's thought and we continued, going into the room Lux and Therese had shared, where the larger of their possessions for sale still resided.   
  
As well as their matching single-beds, Lux's Chinese lantern rested on a chipped night table. We all stared at it, remembering the nights when we had waited eagerly for the undecipherable signals that it had sent. We picked it up, passing it around, gently touching the worn paper, feeling closer to the Lisbon girls with this object then we ever had before. It had been their last chance to get out, their last hope and here it was, now in our hands.   
  
In turn, we asked our mother's to purchase the lantern for us, saying that we had never wanted anything so bad in our entire lives. "You boys don't need to own a dead girl's lamp." Chase Buell's mother had snapped, but we knew that she didn't understand.   
  
To our horror, we watched a Greek Orthodox priest purchase a number of things, though most heartbreakingly, Lux's Chinese lantern. We watched hopelessly as he carried the lantern away, letting it swing carelessly against his hip, knowing that it would rip if too much damage happened upon it.   
  
We knew that he could never understand what he held in his hand, never understand that the lantern had been used to signal help that would never come. That the lantern had a story behind it that no one would ever know but us.   
  
Despite that knowledge, we felt like our precious and so carefully earned memories were being carried away along with the Chinese lantern. 


End file.
